


Loyal Opposition

by seekwill



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, F/M, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Oh my God they were political rivals, Other, Westminster System of Government, more or less
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekwill/pseuds/seekwill
Summary: In a matter of seconds, MP Gabriel Winger's political ambitions begin to crumble before him, strangled in the small hands of MP Beezus Lorde. Assisted by communications guru Anthony Crowley, MP Lorde breaks away from the Centre Cross party taking the entire backbench with them, and leaving Aziraphale Fell, Winger's Policy Director, to pick up the pieces and save his boss's career.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub & Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40





	Loyal Opposition

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to summerofspock for the look-over.

The unexpected vibration of Aziraphale’s phone, reminiscent of a particularly aggressive fly in a silent room, startled him more than it should have. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to the shrill rings, notification dings, and looking at the screen every thirty to forty-five seconds. That was basically his job. But this far out from an election he didn’t get phone calls late into night. He could put his phone on the nightstand and read uninterrupted.

He attempted to recover his page, having dropped the book when the vibration first caught him off guard. “Oh, bother,” he muttered, abandoning the attempt and turning to the nightstand to grab his phone. The vibration continued to fill his bedroom with increasingly urgent buzzing, but the phone in Aziraphale’s hand was an unmoving brick. He realized with a start that it wasn’t his work phone at all, but his personal one.

Aziraphale rarely got calls on his personal line. One particularly insistent reporter had discovered his number somewhere along the line and sent him a text if she wanted a scoop. Aziraphale almost always ignored them, except when he thought responding might work in the party’s favour. His mother called once in a blue moon, and Gabriel called occasionally if he felt Aziraphale wasn’t answering his work phone quickly enough. 

But it wasn’t Device at the Standard, or his mother, or even Gabriel calling. The name that graced the screen was-

“Crowley.” Aziraphale tried to mask the smile in his voice as he answered. A difficult task. There were few people in the party office whose company he so reliably enjoyed. Anthony Crowley was hawkish, funny, endlessly charming. Surprisingly sensitive when he got a pint or two in him. He was nothing like the private school boys Aziraphale had gone to school with, and Crowley was more brilliant than the lot of them combined. Aziraphale thought so anyway.

“Hi Aziraphale.”

In two words the smile dropped from Aziraphale’s lips. “What’s happened?” There was no warmth in Crowley’s tone, no sense that this was a personal call on Aziraphale’s personal line.

“Nothing. Well, no. That’s a lie. Nothing yet. Listen-” There was a scuffling noise and then it sounded like Crowley was talking to someone, but it was muffled, with something covering the phone’s receiver. 

The book slipped to the floor with a dull thump, forgotten.

“Sorry, you still there?” Crowley’s voice had gotten lower, almost a whisper.

“Yes.” 

“Listen. Don’t go to sleep.”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“Just keep an eye on Twitter, alright?”

“Crowley, what is this about?”

“I can’t say more. Just do that for me, would you? Twitter.”

Aziraphale rubbed a nervous hand over his features. “Of course.”

“I’ve gotta run. I’ll, ah. I’ll see you around, Aziraphale.”

The line went silent as Crowley hung up. Aziraphale let the phone slip through his fingers as he picked up his work mobile again, and opened the Twitter app, where he had access to three accounts: the party’s, Gabriel’s, and his own. 

As he refreshed his feed, he thought about Crowley’s parting line -  _ see you around _ \- and the one that came before it -  _ do that for me _ . He must have known what he was doing, Aziraphale thought. There’s no way Crowley didn’t know about Aziraphale’s feelings, didn’t know that he could wring an agreement out of the man with a few choicely worded phrases. 

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then as Aziraphale dragged his thumb down the phone’s screen, Crowley’s warning appeared, in the form of a 280 character tweet.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “Oh no,” he murmured, clicking on the attached press release. His hand was cold as he pressed his palm over his mouth.

More tweets appeared, nearly identical to the first one, from different accounts. “Oh, no no no,” he said, louder than before.

A knot began to form in Aziraphale’s stomach. This was bad. This was bad and there was no way Gabriel knew. This was bad and there was no way Gabriel knew and Aziraphale was going to have to be the messenger.

Generally, over the past decade, Aziraphale had felt that he’d made the right choice, career wise. Academia had felt too static, the civil service too staid. He wanted to be the one to change things. Running for office had never been his speed but policy had, and so he’d knocked on doors and organized until someone let him write something. The Centre Cross party let him be quietly radical, finding ways to weave more progressive policies into proposals under the veneer of respectability. It wasn’t perfect, but he had felt, even though Centre Cross had never been the governing party exactly, that he was making a difference.

He swallowed, an impulse made all the more difficult by the sudden sensation of being strangled, and called Gabriel. 

“This better be important.” Gabriel’s voice was thick with sleep. For as long as Aziraphale had worked for him, Gabriel kept a strict sleep schedule when he wasn’t campaigning. In bed by 9:30, lights out by ten. Aziraphale knew Gabriel awoke each morning at four AM. He knew because that’s when the e-mails started. Also, Gabriel let everyone around him know on a frequent basis that he got up at four, that he recommended it.

“You need to check Twitter.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I-” Aziraphale licked his lips, nervous at what was going to happen in mere seconds. “I just need you to look. Right now.”

Gabriel grumbled, and it sounded further away. He’d moved the phone away from his ear to check his feed.

Aziraphale waited five seconds, ten.

“What am I looking fo-”

Gabriel’s voice abruptly cut off, and Aziraphale knew that he’d found it.

On the other end of the line, sheets were thrown back, a muffled, feminine voice could be heard. Gabriel’s wife, Samantha. A door slammed.

“Did you know about this?” Gabriel’s voice, sharp and furious, came back through the line, and Aziraphale jumped.

“No. I checked Twitter before bed and saw it. I had no idea.” Part of it was true. Enough of it. No need to bring Crowley into things.

“I need you to check the Twitter account of every malcontent on the back bench. Understand? No, scratch that. Every MPs account. I need to know how far it goes. I need to know-” Gabriel took a sharp breath. Aziraphale could imagine him pacing, his fist clenching at his side. “I need to know exactly how fucked we are.”

For a very small moment, Aziraphale felt badly for him. Gabriel had only been the leader of the Centre Cross for eighteen months, and after nearly two decades of being one of their most loyal soldiers. He was good at it. He knew what to say and when, because he’d practiced. He’d carried the Centre Cross to becoming the official opposition on his broad shoulders. At the same time, Aziraphale knew that Gabriel was the architect of his own problems. He alienated those who pushed against him instead of trying to get them on side. He froze people out. He played games with peoples’ careers and lives then smiled blithely and told them it “wasn’t personal.” 

He had turned his closest ally into an enemy, and had somehow believed he would escape the consequences.

“Are you going into the office?” asked Aziraphale.

“Of course I’m going into the office. And so are you. So is everyone who isn’t associated with this...this…”

“...mutiny?” Aziraphale offered.

“Just meet me at party HQ. Check Twitter.” Then he muttered something that could have been  _ Jesus _ , or maybe it was  _ Beezus _ . Knowing Gabriel, both were equally likely.

* * *

“I’ve gotta run. I’ll, ah. I’ll see you around, Aziraphale.”

When Crowley had previously imagined himself calling Aziraphale in the hazy space around midnight, it had always been for less catastrophic reasons. More kissing, less political intrigue. But here he was, standing on the sidewalk outside of the capital’s least glamorous pub, having a cigarette he didn’t really want because he needed the excuse.

To tell Aziraphale anything was tantamount to treason, or at least that’s what Bee would say. Ever since they’d decided on their plan of action, had asked Crowley to help them execute it, had slowly drawn other party members who were increasingly disillusioned to their side, they’d been consumed with a fervour Crowley had never seen from them. Sure, he’d seen Beezus Lorde’s passionate speeches on the campaign trail and in the House of Commons, but that was work. He hadn’t realized that all that fire and fury had been real. It was what they were made of.

He wasn’t supposed to tell Aziraphale, and he hadn’t, not really. Crowley had prepared him. He’d just nodded in a direction and if Aziraphale just happened to look there, then that was a lucky guess.

It was just that Aziraphale was so sweet, and funny when he didn’t mean to be. He seemed to find Crowley quite charming. They’d share lunch, drinks at the pub on Friday nights. Drinks might be followed by flirting. Crowley thought he was only weeks away (or maybe months) from asking Aziraphale back to his flat. Or maybe to dinner. That chance would be fairly torpedoed now.

There was no way Aziraphale would give up his position in Gabriel’s inner circle for a group of upstart misfits, most of whom regarded Aziraphale as a sycophant. There was no way they could keep up the drinks, the flirtation with the line that Beezus had just drawn in the sand.

He liked Aziraphale. More than liked. But he believed in Beezus. And that made the difference.

He stubbed his unfinished cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, and put it back in the carton. There was no bin nearby and if Dagon caught him littering she’d have him skinned, then fired. He smirked at the idea of the ragtag group of people Beezus had assembled for their new endeavour: a violent environmentalist, a former garbage man from the swampy mid-section of the country; an amber-eyed, silent yet intimidating career politician, who was beloved in his constituency for reasons completely unknown to Crowley. And that was just their closest allies.

By all accounts they shouldn’t have made it, Beezus that is. They had no filter, almost never toed the party line, they antagonized people they should have kept close, told important donors to fuck off if they put a foot wrong. Crowley sometimes wondered if Beezus had any sense of self preservation, but then these things they did, these things that ran contrary to what a politician should be made them shockingly popular. When he searched Beezus’s name on instagram, they showed up in selfie after selfie, snarling or with a smirk, the person who had asked for the picture looking thrilled. They were asked on talk shows, there had been a draft committee in place to get them to run for mayor of the capital, which they were entirely uninterested in. 

It was confusing to Crowley why their career had plateaued. He’d heard whispers - hell, half of this business was whispers - that at one point Beezus had been joined at the hip with Gabriel Winger. Then a two years ago, shortly before Crowley was wooed away from his cushy independent consulting gig to head up Bee’s communications team, whatever Beezus and Gabriel had collapsed entirely.

Crowley couldn’t imagine the two of them, side by side. Gabriel, the tall, older embodiment of that guy who hazed first years at uni but somehow never got in trouble for it, and Beezus, the miniscule, genderfucked antagonist. But it was true. He’d seen the file photos, the policy papers they’d written together. He saw the way Beezus’s face cracked whenever Gabriel came up (which was frequently, as he was party leader), revealing a bone deep rage that could only exist because it was  _ personal _ . Crowley asked about it once and Bee shot him the kind of look that made him feel like his insides had been through a blender so he dropped the issue and never brought it up again.

But it was clear that Beezus had had enough of the plateau, and they’d reached the same conclusion that everyone else close to them had - the only way to work skyward, was without the albatross of MP Gabriel Winger around their neck.

Crowley moved through the pub and into the back room, where Beezus, several other MPs, and a nervous gaggle of parliamentary staffers gathered. Beezus paced nervously in front of Crowley’s computer, eyeing it with a wariness a person would normally reserve for a wild animal with a high prey drive. Their ice blue eyes jolted upwards to Crowley in the doorframe, and their button nose scrunched in annoyance. 

“Where the fuck were you?”

“Having a smoke,” he offered, sliding in front of the computer where the press release sat open in front of him.

“I’m about to detonate my entire goddamned life and you’re outside having a smoke.”

“You’re not going to, hey-” When Crowley looked over at Beezus’s hands, they were shaking. He’d never seen their hands shake. “You’re not detonating your life. Party politics as this country understands them, maybe. But not your life.”

“You better be right.” They pressed their hands into the tabletop beside him, needing to ground themself.

“Or what?” he asked, knowing Bee liked a challenge, could use the distraction.

“Or we’re all out a fucking job, you included.”

They glanced over to him, and Crowley smiled. He watched as they tried to suppress their own, and turn away from him as they failed.

When Crowley had first met Beezus he’d had a crush on them. They’d just been so magnetic, so compelling. The crush had died a tidy death once he’d started working for them and learned they were also a grade-A shit, but there were moments when he could feel the ghost of it. When they played like they weren’t grateful for him. When they were a little bit vulnerable, by accident. 

He hoped everyone in this room wasn’t about to detonate their entire goddamn lives.

“One minute to midnight!” hollered Dagon from her place in the corner. Her assistant pulled out her phone and Dagon looked more nervous than Crowley had ever seen her. Everyone did. Twitchy and anxious and a little bit wrecked.

Thirty seconds.

Crowley copied and pasted the message into the text box, attached the image of the press release. No way he was going to take the risk of scheduling it in advance. He’d banned everyone else from doing that as well. “You’re staying up until midnight, and we’re doing it right, and all at the same time, or it’s curtains for all of us.”

Beezus hovered over his shoulder.

“Do you want to do the honours?” Crowley hovered the cursor over the  _ Send Tweet _ button.

Beezus rolled their eyes, but brought their thin, pale hand to the mouse. They bit their lip.

“Midnight!” 

The room was a flurry of e-mails going out, of notifications that tweets had sent, of junior staffers making calls to reporters they knew would be awake.

**PRESS RELEASE** \- read the tweet.  **After lack of movement on vital social issues, the progressive wing of the Centre Cross party has taken decisive and drastic action on behalf of their constituents and have established a new political party - the People’s Underground Party.**

The picture was a screenshot of the letter, signed by twenty members of parliament, with Bee’s signature largest at the very top. There was no question as to who would be party leader. There was no escaping that twenty was the exact number of MPs that threatened Centre Cross’s position as the official opposition.

Then there was silence, and for a few seconds they were in a beautiful, liminal space where there was no conflict or chaos. Just the group of them, and a couple of good ideas.

And then the phones began to ring. 

A familiar name flashed on Crowley’s screen. He smiled, of course she would be first.

“Ms. Device. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Talk to me about what I just read, Crowley. Do you have a comment from Lorde?”

Anathema Device of the Daily Standard. Dark and serious and brilliant. He’d let her buy him more than a few drinks over the years when she wanted something from him. He always gave her something she could use. He liked the way she pushed her glasses up her nose with the back of her hand and the way she acted exhausted around almost every man she met, in the way that only very beautiful women could get away with. She refused to wear the blazers and straight leg trousers other female political reports treated like a uniform, instead walking into press conferences in new age cosplay and looking like she smelled of patchouli (she didn’t). It caught people off guard. Crowley liked her.

“Our Lorde is a little busy,” said Crowley, looking over his shoulder as Bee stuck their nose in their phone, no doubt reading the responses rolling in on social media. “But I can tell you that the People’s Underground is going to shift the landscape of this country’s political conversation. We are no longer interested in playing it safe.”

He could practically hear Anathema rolling her big brown eyes. “That’s a line, Crowley. Give me something I can print with a little dignity.”

“On our birthday, Ms. Device. You’re so demanding.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute. So you’re not going to tell me how this all came down?”

Crowley grinned. “Well, since you told me I’m cute, you can have this, but on background.” He waited for our sound of assent before continuing. “There’s twenty of us now, but there is discontent within the Centre Cross ranks. I wouldn’t be surprised if we grow by 50% by the end of the week.”

“Give me some names. One name.”

“Not tonight, Howard & Bernstein. Everything else you need is in the Press Release.”

“Fine. I’ll call you later.”

“I’m sure you will. Not too early though, love. I’ll need my beauty rest.”

She snorted as she hung up. He liked her gumption.

Crowley turned in his chair as his phone rang again. Shadwell, from Raker. A tabloid rag. He’d never answered a call from Shadwell and he wasn’t going to start now. Cute that he was trying though. He placed the phone face down on the table and turned back to look at Beezus again. 

The room had taken on a more celebratory air. MPs and staffers embraced and laughed, giddy from taking the biggest risk of their political careers, early enough that there weren’t any consequences to experience. Someone popped a cork on a champagne bottle, or more likely sparkling wine. Money would be tight for a bit without the Centre Cross coffers to dip into. But things would turn around. Crowley knew they would.

Crowley thought of Aziraphale, whose night was not going like this. Whose night, week, month, maybe year, was disrupted beyond measure and in the very worst way. Smart and lovely Aziraphale, whose mind wasn’t lost in a book anymore but who was unquestionably spinning solutions to save the party who employed him, to save the career of the man he worked for, but didn’t really like. Maybe Crowley could lure him over, eventually. Maybe Aziraphale would find his way to the right side of things.

Across the room from him, Beezus leaned against the wall, completely still in the swirl of the party. Instead of the nervous smile Crowley had anticipated, their teeth still worried into their bottom lip. Their dark, thick eyebrows curved in concern. Crowley crossed to them.

“Alright?” he asked, looking down on their phone screen. He expected to see them scrolling furiously through Twitter, and fixating on some horribly offside comment.

They weren’t looking at Twitter though.

Gabriel Winger was calling, and Beezus looked bereft.

**Author's Note:**

> A disclaimer! You may be wondering if this is how a new political party is started in the Westminster system. It's not! I'm only vaguely aware of how that happens and I didn't feel like looking it up to improve accuracy. This fic is going to be low on research and high off of anecdotes from my time being a political volunteer and staffer. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_seekwill) and [tumblr](https://stillseekwill.tumblr.com/).


End file.
